Access Across Time: How the NAA Preserves Digital Records Andrew Wilson Assistant Director, Preservation

What I will talk about NAA Context Some Concepts NAA Implementation NAA Process flow Preservation Software Platform (Xena)

National Archives of Australia Established 1946 as part of National Library Independent since 1960 Legislation: Archives Act 1983 Approx. 420 staff in 12 locations Budget ca. A$65 million. 350 shelf kilometres of records Separate preservation funding since 2001

Digital Preservation Project Started in 2001/2 FY Cost to date approx. A$2 million (30 months) Aim: to develop viable approach to the preservation of ‘born digital’ records for long term accessibility and use Deadline: July 2003

Note NOT a digital archive but an approach to digital preservation Well developed archival processes that can be applied to records irrespective of format: - appraisal/selection - transfer - description - retrieval and access Project purely about preservation

Some Definitions Records Recorded information created or received and maintained by an organisation in the transaction of business Digital Records Records in digital form processed by computers Not: Systems or working applications

The preservation problem Technological obsolescence –Hardware –Software Restrictions on the use of technology

Traditionally Researcher directly experiences the record through its source object Preserve the object and you preserve the record ObjectResearcher

Researcher experiences the record through a performance Preserve the performance and you preserve the record But…digital records are performances SourceProcessPerformanceResearcher

A Two Part Solution 1.Keep a master copy of every source we accept into custody -Passive Access -Researcher gets the 'Zeros and Ones', not the performance 2.Active Intervention to recreate the performance -Replace the source and process -Active Access to the 'essence' of the performance -Based on experience with Audiovisual material

The essence of the record What we want to preserve out of the performance -What aspects are essential to the record's value? -What aspects are incidental to the record's value?

Our preservation approach Select open and well documented data formats Migrate records into these formats (‘normalisation’) Support open source software tools that can read these formats

Preservation System 3 separate components 1. Quarantine 2. Preservation 3. Storage All components physically separated from each other and all other NAA networks Access to hardware restricted to digital preservation staff

Quarantine server Records Transfer written to server Digital Preservation recorder captures information about actions on each digital object Transport medium stored on repository shelf for at least 4 weeks Objects then re-checked for viruses using new virus definitions Checked objects written to transport medium DPr Checksums verified Objects undergo virus check For the technically minded: - Dell PowerEdge 2600 server - 2 x 2GHz processors -.7Tb disk store - independent UPS

Preservation server Transport medium is attached to preservation server Digital Preservation recorder captures information about actions on each digital object Output sets written to new transport media DPr Preservation software platform (Xena) processes digital objects Xena outputs two new objects and calculates new checksums for each: 1.Wrapped bitstream 2.‘Normalised version’ For the technically minded: - Dell PowerEdge 2600 server - 2 x 2GHz processors -.7Tb disk store - independent UPS

Digital Repository Transport media are attached to repository server Digital Preservation recorder captures information about actions on each digital object Third copy on digital tape which is stored offsite DPr RAID Storage 2 copies on RAID storage - Configured as RAID 10 - Automated, regular, frequent verification of checksums Simple management application to allow access to digital objects (eg. DSpace) For the technically minded: - Dell PowerEdge 2600 server - 2 x 2GHz processors -.7Tb disk store - fibre channel between server and RAID - independent UPS Copies written to new media for access To Access

NAA Implementation 1.Follows Open Archival Information System framework 2.Non-proprietary, open source solution 3.Based on the extensible markup language (xml)

xena = xml electronic normalising of archives

xena File-based Java/Swing application Runs in Java Packaged as an executable.jar file Modular Multiple document interface

xena functionality: File format guessing File ‘normalisation’ XML encapsulation Process and data verification File viewing A core module plus ‘plug-in’ modules which do:

Core module The core consists of: I. Graphical User Interface components II. Plug-in management components III. Generic validation components

Plug-in modules Plug-ins are created for identified data types that are to be processed. Each plug-in consists of: –A guesser component –One or more input format type components –A normalised format type –One or more normalisation modules –One or more view components –Sorting functionality –Validation functionality –Printing functionality –GUI interaction methods

DEMONSTRATION OF XENA

Contacts Andrew Wilson Project Manager AtoR Digital Preservation Project Web: /preservation/summary.html

THANK YOU ANY QUESTIONS?